OpenVBX: A real win for FourSquare (and other location based services) | Hacker News Reader

OpenVBX: A real win for FourSquare (and other location based services)

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18 pointsjeffiel10 comments

Call me skeptical, but checking into 4SQ to tell your PBX where you're at doesn't feel like that killer feature that's going to take them "from 1.5 million to 1.5 billion users."

Or I could carry a cell phone?

A very neat idea but, way over engineered.

For various reasons... no. It depends how extensive is the phone system you interact with normally, but (just random examples):

- if you pick up the phone at work, you can be marked unavailable on others' phones / local IM / ..., not so much on the mobile

- you have to pay for the connection you're making to your mobile (so basically paying for answering the call) - if you're somewhere where you can pick up a voip phone, that's not the case anymore

- during lunchtime, you could redirect people to an IVR "I'm at lunch - if it's urgent press "1", otherwise call be back in 15"

- you might not want others to call your mobile number directly (or you have a phone presence in another country, so the call goes through your pbx anyways)

- you can limit the noise in the office automatically if your phone doesn't ring when you're not there

- people calling you don't have to wait X minutes to find out you're really not there, and not running to the phone

There are many cool features, most of which you don't need really. But if your work relied phone communication 99% of the time, you could probably come up with 50 more points about what to do with this system.

Definitely a proof of concept, and not the shortest walk to the solution. But, haven't we all been thinking 4SQ / social media is all about friends, tweets, coupons and mayorships... this proof of concept shows 4SQ could one day solve business problems, like presence too.

I think that's just neato!

I just wrote it as a proof of concept during a weekend hackathon but people really liked it so it was spared from the bit bucket.

I started out working on a similar feature for my own VBX platform (OtherNum.com) but once Jeff showed me OpenVBX I immediately ported all my "plugins" over including my integration with Chirbit.com and MyCaption.com.

I wrote more about the impact OpenVBX had on my startup OtherNum on my tumblr: http://tumblr.gleep.org/

Ultimately, the 4square piece is a tiny piece of the OpenVBX world but I think what it shows is the potential to integrate your phone infrastructure with the world around it.

This is a good example of "just because we can do it doesn't mean it's a good idea."

FourSquare is hardly required for this. Any application like Locale or Tasker can do this on any Android phone far more effectively without relying on OpenVBX or an additional "social networking" site.

I think the point is that if you're already going to the trouble of checking into places on FourSquare, you may as well get some additional value from it.

That makes more sense, still think that could be done at an application level on the phone. Though in the spirit of being in the cloud and not needing heavy client-side applications, this presents a very nice forward looking solution.

That was exactly my intent. I started looking at ways to control my original VBX platform from the mobile device and FourSquare checkins was an easy target.

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